"Fallen" by Evanescence: An Album Review

Evanescence “Fallen” (3.5 stars)

Before “Fallen” (Wind-up Records) came out in 2003, the most anyone had heard about the band from Arkansas were two songs that seemed to be played across the radio indefinitely, “My Immortal” and “Bring Me to Life”. I remember asking my mother at the time (we were listening to one of ‘her’ stations which played soft rock) who had done them. She didn’t know.

And then “Fallen” came out and established the Evanescence as a sort of Gothic/Alternative Rock feel and the music world quickly took notice. How interesting, a hard rock band headed by a girl.

“Fallen” gave Amy Lee the chance to stretch her voice, and stretch it she did. From track to track she goes from determined, strong, almost bitter at times, to a softer, more chilling tone and back again.

But it’s not only the vocalist to be praised, the music as well pars with the lyrics at the right tone, and overall sets the mood of the song in the very beginning, even before Amy begins to sing.

No album is without its flaws of course. The very first song, “Going Under” is mediocre and shouldn’t give the listener their first impression of the band. “Hello” and “Tourniquet” feel sort of out-of-place as well, depending on the listener.

“My Immortal” and “Bring Me to Life” are two of the most notable songs on the album because they’re the songs that made the band popular, but lets take a look at some of the lesser known good songs:

“Everybody’s Fool” is a great example of the ‘fakeness’ in certain aspects of our current world. The lines “without the mask where will you hide/can't find yourself lost in your lie” make a statement about people who are too lost in trying to impress everyone else that they forget who they are.

“Haunted” is one of the spookiest songs on the album. It definitely has that stereotypical ‘gothic/emo I hate this world’ tone at first, but later on it become apparent that the true emotion being expressed is fear, and the reality of it. Though both the music and lyrics are strong, it has an underlying frightened child feel.

The emotion of fear is later re-addressed in “Whisper”, which despite the title is definitely one of the ‘rockier’ songs on the album, this time the theme has taken a darker turn and is paired with a feeling of loneliness. It seems an appropriate end song for the album, because this is the song Amy’s voice AND the instrumentals really build and come out. Like some sort of climax we’ve been waiting for the whole album.

So that’s a brief review of “Fallen” by Evanescence. It’s the bands first cd, and definitely the most notable one. And I still can’t figure out why they still play the songs on that soft rock station.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll-Required Listening

For this blog assignment we had to choose three songs from the required listening list on Spencer’s blog and write about them. I have chosen Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction”, Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”, and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”.

“Eve of Destruction”-Barry McGuire




This is probably my favorite song on the entire list. It has a somewhat faster pace then most of the other 1960’s folk rock songs I think the lyrics are brilliant. It almost seems like a protest song although it’s much more ‘mellow’ then what we consider ‘protest songs’ to be today. My favorite part is “You’re old enough to kill, but not for votin’”. I think this speaks a lot about how the youth of America felt back then, a sense of duty to do anything they could to help their country. And in a way, it seems kinda messed up that they can go and fight and yet their opinion is never heard about whether we should even go into war.


“Big Yellow Taxi”- Joni Mitchell


I’ll admit it; I thought the Counting Crows did this song originally. I suppose it shows my musical ignorance where anything pre-1990’s is concerned. This is one of my dad’s favorite songs (though he neglected to mention she did it originally) and I’ve always kinda liked it (to the point of getting vastly annoyed when people assure me the song’s title is “They Paved Paradise”). However, this version stands out to me in a different way then the CC version. In the CC version, things are a lot faster and much more focused, making this piece much more of a ‘song’. Joni Mitchell’s version is somewhat ‘dreamier’, her voice is softer and more emotional, and it really helps the spirit of the lyrics come out more. If the CC version is like a ‘song’, hers is more a like poetry with music.

“Superstition”- Stevie Wonder


This is a song I’ve heard countless times over my life and have really never paid much attention to before (except to note that the song was called “Superstition”). Now that I’ve heard it again, and gone back and read the lyrics, the meaning is starting to become a little clearer to me. I’m undecided as to whether I actually like the song or not but he makes some interesting points (among various references to old wives tales) such as ”When you believe in things that you dont understand, Then you suffer, Superstition ain’t the way, yeh, yeh”.